Happiness Is a Warm Gun // Lennison

Four

Shaking his head in disbelief and, although it stung, George couldn't stop from the smiling. "I hope you realise that you're a cop and you're at a gangster's house. Not only a gangster, one of the gangsters." he chuckles admittedly astonished by John's presence. This guy either knows his shit or is dumb as shit. Something told George though that it was the former.

"And I hope you realise that you broke my only term and condition." John bites back with scorn lining his voice and that puts George's smirk to a halt instantly.

Motioning to his beaten-up face and his blood-soaked collar, George bit back with some anger of his very own. "Maybe you should ditch the hippy glasses and get some real fucking lenses that aren't the colour of my face right now! Sorry to inform you, but I have been just a tad occupied today!" He growls and spits at John's feet with enough attitude to put most of the teenage population to shame. But John doesn't flinch.

"How was I to know that, huh? You could have come to the address and told me and I would have understood, fixed you up with some bandages and sent you back on your way." he explains and George simply scoffs right in his face.

"Ha!" He snarls with a smug look in his eye. "No, you wouldn't have. You're a cop. Cops don't care enough to do that shit." From his voice, John could feel the bitterness on his skin and the ugly truth behind it. He knew George was speaking from experience.

With a small sigh, he motions with two fingers for the younger man to come with him and with a begrudging grunt as he whipped his coat from the back of the door, he did just that. They strolled along the monotonous streets of London in the general direction of John's apartment in silence. George eventually lit a cigarette while John shoved his hands in his jean pockets before starting.

"Look," He sighs. "I get that cops can be some of the cruellest, most corrupt, nasty and manipulative people on Earth, but I can also tell you that that isn't all of us. I care about my city, my public and I truly just want everything to run smoothly. I know people are always going to do bad things. Drugs are going to be sold, people are going to be raped and violence won't cease, but I know I am making a difference." He says slowly, with his breath controlled and his words sincere. His eyes watched his tan leather boots as they walked but that didn't mean he couldn't feel George's persistent glare boring into his skin.

It was silent for a few moments longer as the younger of the two processed the other's words, turning them over in his mind. "You...You mean that?" He whispers, half mystified.

"Every word." John confirms as he leads them down the  lane his apartment was on.

George puffed away on his cigarette with a baffled smile on his lips. "Now, are you absolutely sure you're a cop?" He asks while they walk up the concrete steps to John's apartment complex and he rattles the keys in the lock. As soon as they step into John's apartment though, there is no doubt in George's mind that this man is in fact a cop.

Every single inch of wall was covered, nobody could be sure what colour the paint was underneath because there was absolutely no way to tell. There were 'wanted' posters, sheets of scribbled down notes and forensic portraits of known killers (some George had met himself). There were countless medals and ribbons all with the London Police Force emblem on them, hazy CCTV snap shots of robberies gone bad and violent murders, but it was hardly any of that that caught his attention. He turned on the heel of his black leather boots to see something he'd only heard of in mystery and crime novels.

A cork board the size of George's room back at his Dad's house sat propped up against a wall in the lounge room and on it were some regrettably familiar faces. In the middle was his father, flanked by Reggie Duke and Martin Cleaver. Pins with red twine wrapped around them then webbed out to form all the known connections with small notes on each and every person. As he hesitantly stalked closer to it, his heavy boots echoing off of the hard wooden floors, he gasped softly at seeing his own face - a black and white mugshot taken roughly a year ago - with a line of thread connecting him directly to his father. As he leant right in to read the small notes below his name, he was shocked to see his address, date of birth and height all written down.

"Wow." He breathes, looking over the rest of the detailed cork board. "You've really done your research." He chuckles as he sees even the maid that comes to clean his Dad's house every Wednesday afternoon.

"I get paid for it so I may as well be thorough." John sighs, grabbing George's arm and dragging him away from the cork board. He leads him to the bathroom and before George can ask what the hell they're doing in there, John pulls out a first aid kit to answer his unasked question. "Take a seat." The Cheif Inspector orders, gesturing to the edge of the bathtub. George does as he's told and cringes slightly when he catches a glimpse of his face in the bathroom mirror.

As John tipped a few drops of alcohol from a green, glass bottle onto a cotton ball, George squinted in attempts to see past the man's skin, tissue, muscle and bone. He'd do anything to know what the heck was with this guy! He had never met anyone like him, let alone a cop like him. So why was he so different - why did care like he did. Dark back story? Homeless at 10 years old? Super powers? He really couldn't tell, but it ached in the very pit of his being to know.

John took off his freaky hippy glasses and a crease in his brow formed as he carefully dabbed at the blood smeared from the corner of George's mouth to all the way up his cheek. "So," He whispers, his face so close to George's that he felt his breath on his forehead. "Are you going to tell me how and what happened?" He asks, meeting George's eyes for a second and raising his eyebrow almost like a father would do to a son who had broken a window.

"Why would I?" The 23 year old challenges, his own eyebrow raising before he realises that it hurts and he sets it back down.

The Cheif Inspector chuckles and smirks slightly before focusing back on the gorey split in George's nostril. "Oh come on, you saw how obsessed I am with your family and the gangs. Why wouldn't I want more information, huh?"

"Ha!" George scoffed. "That's like having an obsession with Winston Churchill and thinking he was American. You don't know anything about my family or the gangs yet, your little cork board was rather bare. For you, the tip of the ice berg is still undisovered."